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levels. Another alternative would be to provide personal counseling to

employees to identify undue stress levels and then to advise any corrective

measures for the individual. In any case, the most important beginning step is

a total reexamination and revision of company policies, plans, and procedures to

enhance employees’ own methods of coping with stress, and simultaneously,

promote an organizational climate which actively assists employees to minimize

their stress.

3.2 Fundamental Techniques to Employee Stress Reduction

One method management can employ to alleviate employee stress is to make them

fitter to deal with the everyday pressures of work . There are three basic

management techniques that would accomplish this goal. Managers should be clear

about their expectations of employees and clearly convey these expectations to

each person. Secondly, management should devise a performance-evaluation-

feedback system such that each employee would be aware of his / her performance

level based on the feedback received. Lastly, employees should be fully capable

of performing their job tasks. Stress arises when employees do not possess the

necessary skills to carry on with the work assigned to them. Therefore, job

training programs are essential to reducing anxiety and stress associated when

employees feel that they do not possess sufficient skills or knowledge to

perform the job that they were hired for.

3.2.1 Communicating Management’s Expectations

In an organization, it would appear that all employees have a clear

understanding of their roles they were hired for and the duties expected of them.

This assertion is often valid for employees working at the front line, such as

workers on an assembly line. Strict procedural guidelines dictates the tasks

and procedures each worker would assume. However, at higher levels in the

organizational hierarchy, an employee’s duties and responsibilities may not be

as apparent. A middle manager or team leader’s role could entail many different

responsibilities and duties such as managing, coordinating, leading, planning,

etc. Despite a detailed job description when the individual was hired, there

often exists a cloud of ambiguity as to what the position exactly encompasses

given the wide-ranging scope of the position . Work stress arises as a result

of this because employees would be distressed over uncertainty of the

sufficiency of their tasks in relevance to their position and role. Furthermore,

employees may not be clear as to the amount of work expected of him or her.

When employees do not know how much effort they should commit to their jobs in

order to satisfy their superior’s expectations, a certain level of employee work

stress would arise in that the individual would be constantly worried about the

adequacy of his / her level of effort. In essence, employees need to know

exactly the tasks expected of them and the level of effort to put into those

tasks.

The issue here is essentially a communications problem between management and

employees. Management should communicate its expectations to employees whether

as a group or individually. Since increased communications is the primary

solution in this case, management should also promote a working environment

where employees are encouraged to voice their concerns, questions, etc. to their

respective superiors. Managers, themselves, should adapt a managing style that

is sensitive and responsive to employee stress. Communication of management

expectations can be achieved by analyzing each role in the organization to

clarify priorities and resolve conflict between roles. This approach would

first, clarify any ambiguity an employee may have about his / her position.

Secondly, it effectively eliminates the stress from not knowing what or how

much to do. Informing employees of their role expectations is only the

beginning to reducing stress levels . Employee also require feedback from their

performance measures.

3.2.2 Providing Feedback to Employees

Once role expectations are known, employees require feedback on their

performance to determine whether those expectations are met. In the absence of

feedback, employees would be worrying if their current levels of effort are

satisfying the expectations of them. A state of ambiguity would arise again,

resulting in increased stress levels.

A systematic approach in providing periodical performance feedback to all

employees in the organization is required. One common approach adopted by many

companies are staff and staff-development schemes. They entail a periodical

one-on-one interview between managers and each of his / her subordinates.

During the interview, the manager would inform the employee of his / her

performance relative to previously set standards (ie. expectations). The

employee would be encouraged to provide his / her concerns regarding the

performance evaluation. Any problems and / or requests for assistance would be

communicated to the manager at this point. To conclude the interview, the

employee would set attainable future goals to improve or maintain the current

performance level.

Royal Bank is a strong advocate of staff-development schemes. Employees meet

with their managers once every four months to discuss the employees’ performance

to-date. The interview

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